The Arizona sentinel., 1887-03-19
PARIS AS A SEAPORT.

Plan of the Proposed Ship Canal from | Rouen to Saint DenIs-
 A vigorous effort seems about to be
 made to convert Paris into a seaport,
 by means of a ship canal extending
 from ROuen, the present head of navi-
 gation on the Seine, to St. Denis, the
 manufacturing suburb of Paris It | will be re nembered that Paris is al-
 ready, with perhaps the exception of
 Buffalo or Chicago. the most important
 centre of inland navigation in the
 world, and the Parisians, who see con-
 stantly before them the spectable of
 London, with its forests of ships, forty miles from the sea, have for
 many years desired to find means for
 uniting a waterway to the sea,
 comparable with that which Lon-
 don enjoys, with the network of inland
 canals which it alone possesses. It
 is likely to be a long time before an ar tificial Thames extends from Paris to the channel, but in the meanwhile good canal will be much better than nothing, and this can, if the French
 Government grants the concession de- sired. be built at once at the expense of a private company, which has adopted
 he plan prepared by M. Bouquet de la
 Grye, and is ready to construct the
 canal without cost to the public treas urY, asking in return only the right, for ninety-nine years, to collect toll. not exceeding three francs per ton, on all vessels passing through the canal, to or from Paris, together with the privi- lege of cuItivating or renting the DOT tions of the bed of the riverl laid dry by its construction.
 The canal which the company pro poses to build will follow in general the bed of the river from Saint Denis to Rouen, but the channel will be strengthened and regulated by artificial banks, and two of the long bends of the river, at Pont de rArche and Sartrouville, will be cut off by straight ditch across the chord of the arc formed by the present channel. There will be three locks, and perhaps fourth, but the canal will be so wide and deep that vessels can pass through it quickly, and the time occupied in the passage from the sea to Paris will not usually exceed twenty-four hours. The proposed depth is six metres, or about 19I feet, which will be sufficient for vessels of 2,000 or 2,500 tons, and the width will be IA feet in the straight parts, and 146 feet at the curves, so that ships can meet and pass at any point Although twenty-six existing highway bridges will have to be altered over into draw bridges, it is remarkable that no inn portant railway is intercepted by the canal, and by changing slightly the course of the present line from Paris to Havre, it will be possible to avoid in- terrupting any important railway route.
 According to the Commandant Cug- min. who writes an interesting descrip- ton of the scheme to La Sensaine des Constructors, the cost of constructing the canal will be about $22, GOO, 900, and it can be finished in three years. With the rate of tolls proposed, the cost of carrying merchandise to Paris in the same vessels that have already brought it to Rouen will not exceed ninety-six cents per ton, while the cost of tran it to lighters at Rouen and to Paris, under the present system, is about $1.sS per ton. By means of this great saving it is hoped that Paris, as a point of embarkation for goods exported from Switzerland and Eastern France, will be able to compete with Antwerp, which is rap idly securing large part of the mari time business of the continent-ARer. 'caH Archltsct.